Maybe you?re not really a boxing fan, but you?ve heard the buzz about this world champion from Omaha ? who, it turns out, is much more than a fighter.
Terence ?Bud? Crawford, 27, all over the sports pages and the hottest thing in his sport, has traveled twice to Rwanda and Uganda ? inspired and accompanied by his fourth-grade teacher, Jamie Nollette.
He went to Africa not for fights but to help the poor. And now he is trying to help kids, many from impoverished families, in the north Omaha neighborhood where he grew up.
With his manager, Brian ?BoMac? McIntyre, wearing a shirt that said ?I?M SO OMAHA,? a natural question for the champ at a Wednesday press conference was, ?How Omaha are you??
?I?m so Omaha,? he said, ?that I wear ?OMAHA? on my trunks.?
As he prepares for a welterweight world-title defense Saturday night in his hometown, to be shown live nationally on HBO, Crawford figuratively wore an Omaha cause on his sleeve: improving an old warehouse at 3034 Sprague St. for his nonprofit B&B Boxing Academy.
His plan, with the slogan ?Give Youth a Fighting Chance,? has attracted the attention of none other than Omaha business legend Willy Theisen, who will help in the drive to raise $1.2 million.
Good guy to have in your corner. Crawford, in fact, hardly could have drawn a better fundraising godfather.
?I like Terence for the guy he is,? said Theisen, who has cheered for him along with thousands of others in two title bouts at the CenturyLink Center. ?His fights were great fights, unbelievable. But then I got to sit next to him at lunch a few months ago to see what kind of guy he really was.
?He is level-headed, a basic great guy. He is settled, and he is a homeowner. When I came out here to the gym and saw kids training, everyone doing what they were supposed to do, it got to me. I came back uninvited and saw that it was the same no-nonsense work, with great music playing ? Stevie Wonder, Jackson 5, Steve Winwood. I even knew the words to the songs!?
On that last comment, Theisen, 70, laughed out loud. Had Willy expected something more ? wild?
The guy who had run ?Wild Willy?s? bar at 99th and Q Streets and in his late 20s started the Godfather?s pizza-franchising empire now stood a couple of blocks from 30th Street and Ames Avenue and admired a guy in his late 20s.
?I wouldn?t compare myself to Terence,? Theisen said. ?But when I was his age, I had ideas and I had goals and I think I was pretty level-headed. He wants to better himself and the people around him, and I did the same thing. He has a plan for life beyond boxing.?
The first time Terence Crawford?s name appeared in The World-Herald was when he was 7, but the article wasn?t about him. His 9-year-old sister had been seriously injured when struck by a car ? two blocks from the warehouse where he trains today ? and the community had rallied around the family.
When Terence was in fourth grade at Skinner Magnet School, his teacher recalled, ?he kept me on my toes. He was one of the playful boys and made me laugh a lot, but he could get distracted. When you got his attention, though, he wanted to learn.?
Those are Jamie Nollette?s recollections today. A 1989 graduate of Omaha Northwest High, she graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and earned a master?s degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
She and husband, Jeff, who works for Hewlett Packard, moved to Arizona a decade ago to provide a better climate for a health problem for one of their three children.
In 2007, she went on a church mission to Rwanda and Uganda and was touched. The next year she co-founded the Phoenix-based nonprofit Pipeline Worldwide, which creates ?sustainable solutions? and has drilled about 40 freshwater wells.
After reading of her former student?s boxing success ? he was named the 2014 fighter of the year ? she messaged him on Facebook, asking if he remembered her. They later met for lunch in Omaha, and he talked little about his boxing but asked a lot about her work in Africa.
That led to his joining her group for two trips, last year and this year.
?He didn?t ask for any special privileges,? Nollette said. ?He went with the flow, he was engaged with people and they loved him.?
He helped install beds and mattresses and did a lot of other work, she said, and witnessed meetings between genocide survivors and perpetrators in Rwanda. In Uganda, he met with a sports minister and leaders of a boxing organization, and told of growing up in an Omaha area that included gangs.
Touched when leaving Africa, he donated all the clothing he brought with him that he wasn?t wearing.
?Terence thinks way beyond boxing,? said Nollette, who is on the advisory committee for the B&B Academy fundraising project. ?His legacy will be so much bigger than boxing.?
At least 100 people, including Nollette and Theisen, showed up Wednesday for a pre-fight press conference at the B&B Academy, some wearing ?Team Crawford? on their shirts.
Among the attendees was Ron Stander, the ?Bluffs Butcher,? who fought Joe Frazier for the heavyweight championship in Omaha in 1972 and regularly drew huge crowds, as Crawford does now.
?He?s a lot better boxer than I ever was,? said the Butcher, who was much bigger and landed a big punch.
McIntyre, 45, wearing the ?I?M SO OMAHA? shirt, grew up near 33rd and Ames. He said he has known Crawford ?since before he was born? and has coached him as he grew up. Crawford?s world title, BoMac said, ?is Omaha?s title.?
If fundraising succeeds, he said, the academy can increase the number of kids being trained from 15 at a time to about 100.
?We want to give them hope,? he said. ?We want to give them the structure they need and the rules to follow, so they can get used to that when they go out in the world.?
The 5-foot-8 Crawford, fighting in the 140-pound class, is 26-0. He?ll take on Dierry Jean, 29-1, of Haiti, and the CenturyLink will be rocking for the champ.
Cheering him on will be Theisen and Nollette ? a godfather and a mentor.
